Standing on Paper Stilts
by Rhianona
Summary: Companion piece to 'Worthy of Your Soul.' After the events of the Horsemen arc, the Doctor finds Methos and offers comfort to the Immortal. h/c, angst, no pairings


_**Disclaimer: **_Highlander and Doctor Who do not belong to me.

_**Spoilers:**_ takes place before Boomtown for Doctor Who, after the Horsemen arc for Highlander. Assumption made that you know what happened in that arc.

_**Pairings: **_None

_**Note: **_thanks to idontlikegravy for beta work. Any further mistakes are my own. Companion piece to Worthy of Your Soul. A birthday fic for a. lanart.

* * *

"Well, that was fun!" Jack threw a wicked grin to his two fellow travelers. "How many times does that make it we've been run off the planet?"

"Oi!" the Doctor grumbled. "We didn't used to have this type of trouble before you came."

Rose rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Be nice, Doctor," she admonished. "You know that's not true." The Doctor pretended to glare, but he couldn't exactly disagree. Their run of ill luck had little to do with Jack joining he and Rose on the TARDIS and more to do with his own special brand of always finding trouble.

"Where we off to next then?" Rose asked, curiosity filling her voice.

"Don't know yet. We can see where the old girl takes us," the Doctor suggested.

"As long as it's not anywhere we have to run for our lives - again - I'm happy," Rose announced. "I'm knackered. Wake me when we get wherever we end up." She headed down the hall, Jack linking his arm with hers, and left the Doctor to navigate.

The Doctor just flashed one of his maddening grins in goodbye whilst pulling some levers, pushing some buttons and spinning some dials. He had no idea where the TARDIS would take them; she had a mind of her own sometimes. "Going to take us somewhere good?" he queried softly as the familiar noises of transportation began. He received a warm pulse in return, but nothing concrete. He stared at the central column for a moment more before shrugging and heading deeper into the TARDIS to find something to do. Unlike his human Companions, he felt no need to sleep. Time to keep himself occupied.

***

By the time Rose had fully rested and Jack had finished primping, the Doctor was bored and slightly hyper. He wondered where the TARDIS had taken them, wondered at what exotic locale she had decided would suit the trio. "Oi! You lot ready yet?" he called out, eager to open the doofr and explore. Traveling with Rose and now Jack had forced him to leave behind some of his melancholy and okay, outright depression at the loss of Gallifrey. Not that he would ever tell them that. He rather thought that Rose, at least, understood.

"Where are we Doctor?" Rose asked as she hurried towards the door, pulling Jack with her.

"Don't know. Been waiting for you."

"Ooo! Maybe we're on Fluri and the Pleasure Palaces of Fridian," Jack gushed. The Doctor snorted in response. For all that Jack made such outrageous comments, he wasn't nearly as sex-crazed as he appeared. He had certainly proven his worth in the months since he had joined the Doctor and Rose on the TARDIS.

Opening the door, the Doctor stuck his head out. "Looks like we're on Earth," he informed his Companions. He took an experimental sniff of the air. "France," he continued, before walking to a nearby newsstand.

"France?" Rose asked, sounding a bit disappointed.

"Yep, Bordeaux to be precise," the Doctor replied, returning to her side with a newspaper under his arm. Yes, he could use some of the rather nifty gizmos and gadgets on the TARDIS console to try and figure out where and when they had exactly landed, but the Doctor didn't want to admit to either of his companions just how finicky the TARDIS could be. He hadn't really had a chance to fix some of the instruments since they had first broken, a few regenerations ago. "It's November 15, 1996."

"Ooo," Jack's eyebrows wiggled in approval. "The nineties. Good decade."

Rose still looked disappointed. The Doctor assumed being in France ten years before her "home" time didn't really excite her. "Why don't you and Jack go off and explore?" he suggested. He instinctively knew that for whatever reason the TARDIS had brought them here, he needed to be alone. He had been trying to figure out just why the TARDIS had decided on Bordeaux. There were better decades than the 1990s to visit, for one thing. And he knew - knew in his bones - that she wouldn't have brought them here unless she had a purpose. Not life or death - not for them; rather, the Doctor suspected the TARDIS wanted him here for a specific person. So who precisely, did he know that would be here in this time and place?

His mind quickly chose and discarded half a dozen possibilities before hitting on the most likely. Not many people he knew and still lived considered France their home. Plus, it wasn't Paris. Paris seemed to attract the few that liked living in France. But Bordeaux? No, he couldn't think of anyone who would even consider living here.

But wait… He frowned as he remembered a stray comment a friend had made last time they had seen each other. At that time, the Doctor had needed comfort and his friend had provided it. If he recalled the brief - and clearly unhelpful - comment made by his friend, he knew what he needed to do.

Time travel: such a wonderful thing, even if it could make the brains of mere mortals break.

Manic grin in place, he headed to the nearest bar. Conveniently, the TARDIS had landed in the neighborhood of several. As he entered the first establishment, his eyes having to take a moment to adjust to the sudden smoky and dark interior, he hoped he would not have to look for long. He bounced towards the bartender, who looked distinctly bored.

"Hello," the Doctor began, "I'm looking for a friend of mine, supposed to meet him here. Big nose? Drinks beer like water?"

The bartender stared at him, his eyebrow lifted in Gallic indifference. "He was here. He's gone now," he finally said.

Though disappointed, the Doctor was more surprised that the bartender had answered him. Especially since he hadn't tipped him. Which might explain the muttered curse as he left. Methos had to be here somewhere.

Eventually, he found the Immortal as he had expected he would. The waitress just waved languidly towards a dark corner where the Doctor found his friend hunched over, seemingly absorbed in his drink. He looked terrible.

"Thought I might find you here," he said by way of greeting. Methos peered at him through bleary eyes and gave a short bark of a laugh.

"Come to keep me company, Doctor? Raise a glass with me!" he offered, his tone as biting as ever. The Doctor detected a new note that troubled him. Despair and self-hatred.

"I have some lovely Fregnian brandy back at the TARDIS. Suitable enough?" he suggested.

Methos merely shrugged; the Doctor waited patiently for him to move knowing that he would. He would appreciate knowing he could get as inebriated as he wanted and not have to worry about his head. He nearly tripped as he rose from his seat but the Doctor quickly grabbed hold of him. "Steady on," he said. "Got everything?"

His companion again shrugged before patting the side of his jacket. The Doctor took it as a sign of acquiescence and gently steered him to the outside.

"Don't you have friends?" Methos asked.

"Two of them. Never you mind though, they're not around."

He snorted. "Sent them away, like naughty school children?"

"Nah, didn't think you'd want them to know about you. One of them is from this time. Or close enough."

No reply from Methos, but the Doctor didn't exactly expect one.

"Almost there," the Doctor promised. He opened the door to the TARDIS and led him through the short hallway to the same room where Methos had once comforted the Doctor in his hour of need.

Methos sank bonelessly into the club chair the Doctor pointed him to before he busied himself at the bar. Really, Fregnian brandy was too fine a drink to waste on someone as inebriated as his friend was, but given his Immortal constitution, the Doctor expected him to start sobering up soon. He poured a generous amount into a snifter for him before joining Methos where he sat.

"Here you go!" the Doctor said. Letting silence fill the room, the Doctor waited for Methos to start speaking. He didn't want to push, knowing that he would begin when and only when he was ready.

"They're dead, you know," Methos finally confessed. It mirrored the Doctor's own confession all those months ago, when he almost broke after the destruction of Gallifrey and the annihilation of his people. "He found me. After all these centuries. He found me. And… gods. I keep thinking there was something I could have done, something that wouldn't have led to their deaths. My great brain, my greatest asset! And I couldn't save them."

Methos sipped the brandy - staving off sobriety, if the Doctor read correctly. "He found me, and she did too… because she was tracking him. Gods, what a fucking tragedy," he continued. The Doctor surmised that Methos meant Cassandra, an Immortal woman who had never forgiven Methos for not preventing Kronos from taking her. Of course, the rape and slavery and death of all her tribe probably had something to do with it as well. "And Mac… he hates me now. Saved my life though, so I suppose that's something."

He paused, staring at nothing for a while. "When I was Death, it was so easy. So easy, to slip into my white robes and put on my mask and rain death and destruction onto the world. I _liked_ being Death." He laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. "The worst thing about living for five thousand years is that what I did when I was young seemed perfectly reasonable, even acceptable - then. The past never lets us go, Doctor. And I pay for my sins, over and over again." Silence descended.

"How did Mac save your life?" the Doctor asked. This regeneration really didn't like inactivity or silence. He sometimes wondered if it was because he was reborn in the ashes of the destruction of his people. If he kept busy, then he didn't have to think or remember.

Something to ponder another day.

Leaning back deep into the chair, Methos stretched out his legs; a pose so similar to his normal one that the Doctor briefly wondered if the Immortal had actually achieved sobriety. But no, there was tension instead of the typical languid ease that usually characterized his sprawls. No matter how much he tried to project it, he was not at ease.

"After… after it all, Cassandra wanted to take my head. I wouldn't have fought her. I don't think…" Methos paused in reflection. "You know something? I honestly don't know if I would have let her do it as easily as all that." He shook his head as if to clear it from a particularly troubling thought. "He told her to stop, that he wanted me to live. Live… as if it were as easy as just saying the words." Methos snorted, "He wants his answers in neat little packages, all tied up with easy explanations."

"He _is_ younger than you."

He grimaced, "Everyone is younger than me. There are very few of us left, you know. Most of the old ones retreated into their mountains and sanctuaries. The young ones, though… they don't understand what it was like."

"What do you mean?" The Doctor found himself genuinely interested. Methos talked. He often said a lot. The trick was separating the dross from the gold. The Doctor could swear that half the time he only did it as a game, to see who would believe the most ridiculous things about him.

"Come Doctor," Methos began in a patronizing tone, "you travel throughout time and space. Surely you've noted how civilizations change, how our moral code and ethics evolve and devolve and spin into something new. It's easy to declare some action as evil, to look back with rose-tinted glasses at what our ancestors did and shake our heads and say 'we've learned' and 'we know better now.' I am condemned for what I did, for what I survived. They would have me drawn and quartered - or at least humanely executed - for my actions. Never mind that they would have done the same. They don't understand what the world was like then. Can't comprehend it and I! I am made to stand trial for it. As if I am that person even now."

"You always think the worst of everyone."

"Not really," Methos disagreed. "I've just lived long enough that I know it's all a cycle."

"Cycles can be broken," the Doctor felt compelled to point out. "People can change. You did."

"Did I?" Methos asked.

"You're no longer Death."

"Am I not? Do I not carry a sword? Do I not fight to protect my head? Mark my words, Doctor. I am still a killer. And according to some, I should still atone for actions committed thousands of years ago, when the world was different."

"But you don't kill indiscriminately. Not anymore - not for centuries. You only kill to protect yourself and those you care for." In this, the Doctor was certain.

"Sure about that?"

"Yes."

Methos snorted. "I don't know what you see in me, Doctor."

"You are a man that has lived over five thousand years. You have lived and yes, you have killed. But you are not who you were three thousand years ago, Methos. You have changed. You are more than you once were."

"I miss them. I miss them so very much," Methos whispered in a broken voice. "No one understands. They were my _brothers_ and together… nothing could defeat us! We were safe with each other and gods! I betrayed their trust. I killed them. And now? I'm alone." He wept.

The Doctor moved to kneel next to him. "You're not alone, Methos. You once told me to live, grow stronger and fight another day. I'm telling you that now. I'm not going to leave you, not like this."

"How are we worth it, Doctor? Why do you keep coming back? What do you see in us that doesn't frighten you away? What do you see in me?" Methos unabashedly wept, tears sliding down his face, letting his grief take over in a way he had not yet allowed. Men in the twentieth century didn't cry, after all.

"Oh, Methos…" the Doctor smiled softly. "I see in you all of Earth's history. You've lived it. And you've survived it. I know what you were and who you are and what you'll become. You are human, Methos, even when you think you're not. You're absolutely fantastic."

Methos just looked at him in disbelief. Clearly, he didn't - or perhaps couldn't - accept the Doctor's word.

"I didn't always love humans, you know. I thought they were little more than barely educated apes the first time I spent any time on Earth. Then, I met a wonderful pair of teachers. Ian and Barbara," he shook his head in fond remembrance. "They stood up to me, fought me for what they thought was right - forced me to acknowledge that I could help people and not just run away. They changed me, changed me for the better. Completely ruined me as a proper Time Lord, not that the Council thought I was much of one to begin with." He paused, tried to figure out the proper way to say what he had to say. What Methos needed to hear, because the poor man was broken and needed to know that despite his past, he still had friends, ones who wouldn't judge him for the way he was in a time that was so very different from the present. "Humans changed me, didn't they! I see all of time and space, all the tragedies and triumphs, loves and losses that drive humans into the greatness they become. You are a part of that history."

Harsh laughter met his statement. "And if I don't like my place in that history?"

"Your history has made you who you are now. You have survived, for over five millennia, something none of your kind has matched. Come close to, yes. And do you know why? You adapt. You don't stay the same. You change with the time and the culture and remake yourself. Your brothers didn't manage that; of all the Four Horsemen, only Death survives."

"Why do I survive? Why me and not Kronos? Or Silas? Or even Caspian?"

"They refused to adapt to the changing times," the Doctor told him.

"… I know," Methos finally admitted, his face crumpling with renewed grief. The Doctor gathered him in his arms and let the Immortal cry himself dry. He wouldn't - couldn't judge really, for hadn't he committed horrible crimes? Even if Methos had assured him that the destruction of Gallifrey did not lay solely on his head, he still felt the loss of his people and his home and the loneliness of it all. It never went away.

The TARDIS radiated comfort, singing a soft lullaby, lulling Methos into a calmness he hadn't felt since he had taken Silas' head and shared a Quickening with Macleod. Once the Doctor felt him begin to drift, he released him. "Come on, let's get you into bed. You'll feel better in the morning, come traveling with me and my companions. You'll like them." He heaved Methos out of his chair and made his way across the hall to where the TARDIS had placed Methos' room. He helped the other undress and get into bed. He was slightly alarmed at how pliant Methos was in obeying him.

The TARDIS pulsed a gentle rhythm; Methos sighed, the faint lines of grief and pain easing just a bit on his face as he snuggled down under the covers. He still looked wrecked, but the Doctor hoped that time spent traveling with him and Rose and Jack would help heal him in a way remaining on Earth wouldn't. Now… he just had to find Jack and Rose before they returned and upset Methos. He rubbed his hands in glee. He loved traveling with Methos. He always got into the most interesting adventures with him.

_/fin_

**Further author's note:** I don't have any plans to continue this any time soon, if ever. It really depends on whether I ever get another plot bunny.


End file.
